Over the past decade, Vision Zero Network's stance on enforcement has evolved. We have listened to and learned from many of our partners leading important work in the criminal justice space, who have helped illuminate how racialized enforcement, including discriminatory traffic stops, are too often carried out in the name of safe streets. Advocating for safe mobility cannot come at the expense of equity, and as Vision Zero advocates, we have a responsibility to challenge approaches that cause harm and advance solutions that improve safety for everyone.
As part of our 10-year anniversary series, we're proud to share the Top 10 Takeaways From Our New Right-Sizing Traffic Enforcement Report. Read it here.
10 - Not All Traffic Stops Are Created Equal
There is an important and often overlooked distinction between safety-focused traffic stops and non-safety stops. Safety stops target behaviors directly linked to serious and fatal crashes, including speeding (a factor in roughly 30% of traffic deaths in the U.S.), impaired driving (also involved in about 30% of traffic deaths), and reckless or dangerous driving. There is widespread agreement that these behaviors impact safety outcomes and should be prioritized in both enforcement and non-enforcement efforts.
In contrast, non-safety stops target low-level equipment and administrative violations, such as a single broken taillight or an item hanging from a rearview mirror. These stops do not correlate to serious roadway dangers and very rarely detect serious crimes (see #9 below). And most problematically, these non-safety stops – often called pretext stops – create unnecessary flashpoints of confrontation, putting both officers and road users at risk, and fall disproportionately on Black and Brown drivers in ways that reflect systemic racial bias and erode community trust. Understanding this distinction is the first step toward a more effective approach to traffic enforcement.
Source of data: Center for Policing Equity
9 - The Data on the Harm of Non-Safety Stops is Real
The sheer volume of non-safety stops happening in communities across the country is staggering and the return on investment is almost nonexistent. An analysis of national crash data shows that low-level infractions, such as mirror or windshield issues, are implicated in just 0.2% of fatal crashes nationwide.
Beyond the inefficiency, these stops create new risks. Police sometimes use low-level traffic violations to make “pretextual” traffic stops to investigate criminal activity unrelated to road safety — a practice that rarely yields useful crime-solving information and carries well-documented consequences for communities of color. Research shows that police use of force was more than twice as likely during non-safety stops compared to safety-related ones. And violence against officers is actually less common when stops focus solely on traffic enforcement rather than broader criminal investigation.
Real-world evidence backs this up. In Fayetteville, North Carolina, the police department reduced non-safety equipment stops by 80% while increasing safety-focused stops. The result? Fewer crashes, fewer injuries, fewer fatalities, reduced racial disparities — and no increase in non-traffic crime. Communities don't have to choose between safety and equity. Done right, right-sizing delivers both.
This figure shows the overlap of pretextual stops and non-safety related stops, both of which are associated with strong racial disparities. Source: Center for Policing Equity
8 - Re-Thinking Traffic Enforcement: From Stops to Eyes & Ears
Right-sizing enforcement isn't necessarily about doing less but about deploying the right strategies for the right needs in order to be effective. Police, as well as parking enforcement officers, can be valuable “eyes and ears” on the street, observing road conditions, identifying hazards, and flagging dangerous locations to their transportation agency partners.
A powerful model is the Traffic Fatality Review Board in Franklin County, Ohio, which is facilitated by the public health agency and convenes law enforcement, transportation staff, prosecutors, coroners, trauma centers, and researchers to review every fatal crash in the county. Their goal is to learn from each incident and identify what can be changed to prevent future crashes from having such severe outcomes. Police are recognized as valuable “eyes and ears” in the community, bringing on-the-ground knowledge and insights.
7 - Fix-It Tickets Offer an Alternative to Equipment Violations
For Vision Zero practitioners, the question is not whether unsafe vehicle conditions should be addressed, but how to do so in ways that actually improve safety without causing unintended additional harm. For example, when a driver has a broken taillight, the goal should be to get it fixed, not to generate a citation that may push a low-income person further into a cycle of fines and debt. Fix-it vouchers offer a practical alternative by encouraging people to address legitimate vehicle safety issues without punitive financial consequences.
The Lights On! program, launched in 2017 after the fatal shooting of Philando Castile during a traffic stop in Minnesota, is a compelling model. Nearly 14,000 vouchers have been redeemed through partnerships with more than 150 police departments and 430 auto shops across 23 states. One in five recipients said they would not have made the repair without the voucher.
6 - Inequities in Traffic Stops Extend Beyond the Driver’s Seat
The dangers of "driving while Black" don't stop at the car door. Analysis shows that police are more likely to issue jaywalking and biking tickets in low-income, predominantly Black neighborhoods – areas that are often burdened with limited or sub-standard walking and biking infrastructure. “Jaywalking”, in many cases, is a rational response to inadequate road design, such a lack of safe, official pedestrian crossings, so deserves an upstream, systemic response, not individual ticketing for doing what may be the rational thing. Read more about the telling origins of jaywalking.
Traffic stops for minor pedestrian and bicyclist offenses are frequently used for unrelated pretextual purposes and too often escalate — sometimes with deadly consequences. People experiencing homelessness are particularly affected. In Washington State, nearly half of those ticketed for helmet violations were unhoused at the time, underscoring how pedestrian and cyclist enforcement can amplify existing vulnerabilities rather than improve safety.
Source: Northcoast Environmental Center
5 - Data Collection and Transparency Are Essential
You can’t right-size what you don’t measure. Collecting and analyzing traffic stop data, including travel mode, officer-perceived race, and other demographic information, is essential for understanding whether enforcement activity is aligned with actual safety needs and whether it may be causing unintended harm. Yet significant gaps remain. As of this writing, only about half of states mandate policing data collection, and many don't require public reporting.
Maryland stands out as an exception for requiring public transparency, offering a strong model for accountability. States, including California and Connecticut, have developed systems to collect and analyze stop data in ways that help inform policy and practice. At the local level, Philadelphia requires the collection and public reporting of stop data, including demographic information, stated reasons for stops, and police actions taken. And dozens more cities and counties are following suit. Read more in the report to see how improved data can help communities assess whether enforcement strategies are effective, equitable, and focused on the most pressing safety risks.
4 - Enforcement Is a Tool, Not a Strategy
A Safe System approach recognizes that no single tool can eliminate traffic deaths and serious injuries on its own and that the tools we choose carry real tradeoffs in reach, cost, and equity. Enforcement has a role, but a limited one. Because it depends on ongoing human or technological intervention to sustain any effect, it sits near the bottom of the Safe System Pyramid, reaching far fewer people, far less consistently, than upstream interventions like road design that change the conditions for everyone, all the time. Within enforcement, officer-led stops and speed safety cameras play distinct roles. Officer-led stops can interrupt dangerous behavior in real time but are resource-intensive, reach only a fraction of unsafe driving, and carry safety risks for everyone involved. Speed safety cameras can be deployed continuously at high-risk locations, offering around-the-clock deterrence without requiring officer presence. However, if not implemented thoughtfully, can place undue burden on low-income road users. Read more in Fair Warnings on how to approach speed cameras with greater equity and intentionality.
Critically, both tools are reactive by nature. They respond to dangerous behavior rather than prevent the conditions that make it possible in the first place. A Safe System strategy deploys them selectively, as one layer of a broader approach, and never as a substitute for the infrastructure investments and policy changes that address root causes and produce more durable results.
3 - Infrastructure Investments Build Lasting Safety Results
The evidence on enforcement is clear: it can work, but the effects are not long lasting. A San Francisco high-visibility speed enforcement campaign on 11 high-injury corridors achieved a 5% reduction in vehicle speeds — but within one week of enforcement ending, speeds crept back up, and within one month there was no detected lasting effect on speeds.
In contrast, infrastructure investments can produce more durable, measurable results. An analysis of 28 San Francisco traffic-calming projects found sustained speed reductions between 5 and 15% and an average 16% reduction in total crashes, including a 35% reduction in pedestrian crashes and a 25% reduction in bicycle crashes. These benefits can also be quantified. The City of Austin estimates its upstream Safe System investments have led to $78 million per year in reduced crash costs – showing how upfront investment in safer street design pays dividends for decades.
2 - An Over-Reliance on Enforcement Causes Disproportionate Harm
Black drivers are more likely to be stopped and once stopped they are more likely to be searched, more likely to be subjected to force, and killed by police. These aren't isolated incidents; they reflect systemic patterns that create chronic stress, erode trust, and cause lasting harm to communities already facing disproportionate road safety risks. Black road users face an approximately 80% higher risk of death as vehicle occupants, more than twice the risk as pedestrians, and roughly 4.5 times the risk while biking, compared to white road users.
The way traffic enforcement is funded compounds these harms. Flat-fee fines disproportionately burden low-income people, triggering cycles of debt, license suspension, and lost work. And when local governments, specifically smaller ones, rely on fines and fees as municipal revenue, including from traffic stops, enforcement can drift away from safety and toward collection. Vision Zero calls on us to focus on the most dangerous behaviors, invests in infrastructure, and removes practices that cause harm without improving safety. That kind of targeted, equitable enforcement isn't just more just, it's also more effective.
1 - Communities Have a Range of Policy Options
Changing enforcement patterns doesn't always require sweeping legislative reform. In fact, there are meaningful levers available right now. Jurisdictions can designate certain non-safety offenses as "secondary" violations, meaning officers can't initiate a stop based on that violation alone, though they can still cite it if a driver is stopped for another reason. Dozens of states and local governments have already moved in this direction. Philadelphia's Achieving Driving Equality Act, for example, reclassified eight non-safety violations as non-primary back in 2022.
Police departments and prosecutors can also adopt internal policies limiting non-safety stops without waiting for legislation – a faster path, though one more vulnerable to shifts in leadership. Communities like Fayetteville, NC; Seattle, WA; Burlington, VT; and several Connecticut jurisdictions have done exactly that. Other options include restricting non-moving stops to situations with a clear safety threat, or updating vehicle codes to remove offenses that aren't meaningfully safety-related.
The path forward is clearer than it might seem. We hope these takeaways serve as a starting point for the conversations and collaboration needed to build safety into our streets, not just penalize its absence.
As part of a Safe System approach, we design streets to be safer and slower, accommodating different types of road users. These designs physically deter most dangerous, high speeds, and are considered inherently self-enforcing, reducing the need for enforcement.
Read the full report: Right-Sizing the Role of Traffic Enforcement: Prioritizing Effective, Cost-Efficient and Equitable Improvements to Road Safety and don’t miss the rest of our 10-Year Anniversary series. It highlights other Top 10 installments to find out what’s giving us hope and what still needs attention after 10+ years of Vision Zero advocacy.